So, I'm sitting at a table, eating my meal. I'm really enjoying it because I really love this restaurant.

Then, somebody sits down at the table across from me and asks everybody in the room for a menu and for some recommendations for lunch. One by one, a series of waiters and customers offer ideas for an excellent meal, but each recommendation is waived off as either too fatty, too expensive, too sweet, too savoury, etc., and nothing appears to be appetising. I'm afraid to mention my own favourites because he might publicly embarrass me about my addiction to foods that are either not nutritional or that are even potentially bad for my health!

Anyway, I come back the next day and the potential customer is there again, in the same chair with the same struggle. The waiters are still patiently trying to help and a couple new customers also chime in with ideas but all is to no avail.

Now this potential future customer normally frequents another restaurant, but he's lost interest in it for some reason. Equally mysterious is his reticence about his own particular preferences. Is he a vegan or does he love bacon sandwiches with cheese and mayonaise? Does he like green tea or is it a pint of strong beer that he cherishes.

Who knows? But I have to say that I really appreciate the patience and helpfulness of all those waiters and all those customers as they make such a commendable effort to please such an intractable "client".

Maybe someday this guy actually join me for a meal in this restaurant. If he does, I'll be ordering quietly and holding the menu over my plate as I surreptitiously eat my favorite meals.

are you asking about the UBS translators handbooks? If so they are very good, the whole thing with accordance is the ease of use. Almost every module that I have in accordance I also own as a book, but I read both UBS and BHS and the fact that I can access all the resources that I own by just the touch of a screen (IOS) or click (OSX), makes it the greatest tool I have ever used. I have been a pastor for almost 30 years and my best advice to anyone is become as familiar as you can with the scripture, God Himself will help you with your theology. God Bless

Unix, the UBS series is inter-confessional it is also practical in that it is designed with working Bible translators in mind. I consider it also to be a concise and easy read when compared to other products. In Accordance it is cheaper than in some of the other Bible Software companies modules. Now, Unix go and take a look at the NET bible's notes which are even cheaper, and if you like the NET's style then you will Love the UBS series which of course offers far more information and data.

The Grammatical Syntax adds the syntactical database, which shows up in Instant Detail. The GNT Papyri is a fully tagged and searchable module that can be used independently, in parallel with GNT-T (and other texts, Greek and English [and other languages]), or in the Interlinear mode.

The beauty of BDAG in Accordance is the ability to triple click and "instantly" look up the word. Hovering over the word and pushing the cmd key shows the first portion of the BDAG entry in Instant Details. The cost may be more, but the amount of time saved may make it worth it. I have the print BDAG and it is gathering dust. The Accordance version is much more convenient and fast.

Rescheduled to today, Monday, but the train-ticket to go to the best libraries was too expensive, $9½ and valid a mere 2 hours, so if I would have wanted to read more I would have needed to pay twice that much. (They would have had both prospective dictionary sets: NIDNTT & ISBE.) There's nothing else I would need to do over there. First I thought the ticket was ⅓ of that. There is another - but You can't go in there without being a student (the whole house is locked) and the next time they have an open-doors day isn't until March 15:

I might go to a library and have a look at it on Friday:

I'm trying to make up my mind as the UBS deal isn't going to last forever.

So, I'm sitting at a table, eating my meal. I'm really enjoying it because I really love this restaurant.

Then, somebody sits down at the table across from me and asks everybody in the room for a menu and for some recommendations for lunch. One by one, a series of waiters and customers offer ideas for an excellent meal, but each recommendation is waived off as either too fatty, too expensive, too sweet, too savoury, etc., and nothing appears to be appetising. I'm afraid to mention my own favourites because he might publicly embarrass me about my addiction to foods that are either not nutritional or that are even potentially bad for my health!

Anyway, I come back the next day and the potential customer is there again, in the same chair with the same struggle. The waiters are still patiently trying to help and a couple new customers also chime in with ideas but all is to no avail.

Now this potential future customer normally frequents another restaurant, but he's lost interest in it for some reason. Equally mysterious is his reticence about his own particular preferences. Is he a vegan or does he love bacon sandwiches with cheese and mayonaise? Does he like green tea or is it a pint of strong beer that he cherishes.

Who knows? But I have to say that I really appreciate the patience and helpfulness of all those waiters and all those customers as they make such a commendable effort to please such an intractable "client".

Maybe someday this guy actually join me for a meal in this restaurant. If he does, I'll be ordering quietly and holding the menu over my plate as I surreptitiously eat my favorite meals.

As you've seen in the forums here, Accordance users are responsive and friendly and happy to give their suggestions.

If I recall, you haven't started Greek as of yet, right? I'd recommend putting the decision-making on hold till you've had at least a year, so you can make a better-informed decision. Regardless of the myriad opinions you could try to continue to solicit on the forum, in the end you'll be the best decider for what resources you want to have. For something as expensive as NIDNTT, I don't see the point in deciding about buying it now--especially if you don't have a Mac and the shipping on the emulator is too expensive--so you are at least a few months away from buying Accordance anyway?

I can empathize with the desire to shore up resources now to feel prepared, but especially with lexicons, dictionaries, etc., I think taking a year of Greek before you invest in Greek resources is wise.

Well I would like to attend the free training in April if I buy Accordance, so maybe I should pay for the postage for the emulator. As I've understood the price on the UBS Handbook is a sale? I googled and found a page saying so, at accordancebible.com. So perhaps I should not think forever before I decide.

I started planning to go with a friend to a town where there are libraries that have all the different dictionaries, so that I could compare, but that won't be until a month from now or a little later, when the snow and ice has melted. The price of the train ticket which was 3 times higher than I thought and a bit of lack of time made me not go now by myself.

I've been googleing a lot of information about two of the dictionaries, revised ISBE and NIDNTT and posted that elsewhere.

It's a good thing that Accordance doesn't seem to require much of the hardware, so I would be able to run both softwares simultaneously on my somewhat slow old computer (4 GB RAM, Core 2 Duo 1.3 GHz, C: drive is an SSD, D: drive is an external HDD) and that customer service says it can be installed on drive D.

It's also theoretically possible that the bundle gets pulled, or that either Bible study software increases the price of any of the titles/sets. Currently Accordance charges $119.99 for the NIDNTT and I don't remember/know whether that has been the exact price for a long time?:

-so you are at least a few months away from buying Accordance anyway?

I can empathize with the desire to shore up resources now to feel prepared, but especially with lexicons, dictionaries, etc., I think taking a year of Greek before you invest in Greek resources is wise.

Early in January there was a bundle deal on NIDNTT and NIDOTTE together for $129.99. But you can never know when an item will go on sale. And what if you study a year of Greek and then find a certain lexicon of less value to you than you thought it would be? If I'm right that you haven't started Greek yet, I'd wait at least a year before sinking major funds into Greek-based resources, other than whatever course texts you need.

A quote from elsewhere: "I would put either of those Baker Evangelical Dictionaries of Theology significantly ahead of the New Bible Dictionary from the "Essential IVP Reference Library"." So Evangelical Dictionary of Theology 2nd Edition (Elwell) might be a good complement. Unfortunately it uses very little Gk, compared to AYBD. It references the NIDNTT a little. So perhaps EDT in combination with NIDNTT:

it may be over the top for what you are after, but the IVP essentials are excellent, of serious scholarship level. Assume a little Greek and Hebrew, but not too much (in the more scholarly volumes) and are a great price!

I'm gradually making up my mind, the biggest single obstacle being that if I choose to become an Accordance customer I would sometimes have to update the software and that would amount to a few times when I would really have to - during a lifetime. Since my investments in Accordance modules would be small except for the UBS Translators Handbook NT, the cost for updating would really be a bigger problem than switching back and forth between two softwares...:

Then, somebody sits down at the table across from me and asks everybody in the room for a menu and for some recommendations for lunch. One by one, a series of waiters and customers offer ideas for an excellent meal, but each recommendation is waived off as either too fatty, too expensive, too sweet, too savoury, etc., and nothing appears to be appetising. I'm afraid to mention my own favourites because he might publicly embarrass me about my addiction to foods that are either not nutritional or that are even potentially bad for my health!

Anyway, I come back the next day and the potential customer is there again, in the same chair with the same struggle. The waiters are still patiently trying to help and a couple new customers also chime in with ideas but all is to no avail.

[...]

I have to say that I really appreciate the patience and helpfulness of all those waiters and all those customers as they make such a commendable effort to please such an intractable "client".

... so I would really need encouragement whether there's more reasons to buy Accordance (other than functionality which I've discovered is what I expected), such as resources, either resources that are excellent value for money contentwise, or a cheap way to set up modules that work well together in order to have a the essential tools and functionality for the type of work and studies I would be doing. I hope I've clarified what that would be.

Then, if Accordance offers for example psychology books (which I haven't had time to ask customer service yet) then that would great.

Making up my mind about lexicons is fairly easy.

I'll make up my mind about Bible dictionaries and such within a month from now.

Whether or not I would manage without a GNT at this point (for a start) is an important question as that is really down whether it would add enough usability. Eventually years from now I would probably buy a new GNT module. Maybe not an as heavy resource as CNTTS, I haven't even looked at the price and expect it to be expensive, more than $200, but thanks for the suggestion I know a few people who are looking at it!